Free Web NovelChapter 44: Chapter 44: Quick, Tell Me, What Set Your President Off? (2)
Zane grew even angrier. Any good atmosphere that might have been building was completely destroyed by her words.
At first, he had only wanted to fasten her seatbelt for her. Now...
He narrowed his eyes and drew back. "Fasten your seatbelt," he said stiffly. "The last thing I need is to be responsible for your death in a car crash!"
Georgia Thorne, "..."
Zane’s personality was very direct. He showed his emotions freely—like, dislike, and anger were all written plainly on his face.
Not like Elliot Sheridan. She had been with him for nearly three years, and to this day, she still couldn’t decipher his moods.
A sharp pain lanced through her head. ’Why am I thinking of him again!’
Georgia didn’t give him the address of the apartment she was renting. Instead, she had Zane drive for a while before asking him to drop her off at an intersection.
It wasn’t too late. If she hurried, she could still catch the subway.
Hearing her request, Zane’s face turned livid, and he glared at Georgia as if she were his mortal enemy.
Georgia sat perfectly still.
She couldn’t get out unless Zane unlocked the doors.
Besides, she had a feeling that anything more she said would be wrong.
Zane pulled a cigarette from its pack. Without even lowering the window, he lit it and started smoking right in front of Georgia.
Zane wasn’t a chain smoker; he just liked to have a few cigarettes to de-stress when work was piling up or he felt agitated.
Five minutes later, Georgia had watched him smoke three cigarettes.
She finally broke the silence. "It’s getting late. I need to go home."
Zane took a final drag from the cigarette in his hand and exhaled a plume of white smoke.
It billowed across Georgia’s face, momentarily obscuring her expression.
He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and lowered the window. The night wind immediately rushed in.
It swept across Georgia’s face, tossing her long hair back.
"I’m serious. Please think about it." Zane looked at her earnestly. "This kind of insurance work isn’t suitable for a young woman like you."
’What if she runs into another creep like Elias Young? I’m not Superman; I can’t always be there to rescue her in the nick of time.’
Seeing her vulnerable side today had stirred something within him.
It was an indescribable feeling, a subtle shift deep in his heart.
Georgia smiled. "I’ll think about it," she said.
Zane fell silent and unlocked the car doors.
Georgia waved goodbye to him and disappeared into the subway entrance.
Zane watched in the rearview mirror as she slowly faded from view.
He knew her "I’ll think about it" was just a polite dismissal.
Georgia rode the subway home, utterly exhausted.
The apartment was still dark; Nancy Hughes wasn’t back yet. freёweɓnovel.com
She’d been busy lately, too, constantly bossed around by her seniors and working overtime every day.
After a shower, she finally felt more at ease, having washed away the lingering scent of Elias Young.
She thought for a long time but couldn’t find an answer. The more she mulled it over, the worse her headache became.
Her phone started ringing in her bag. For once, she didn’t feel like answering, but the caller was persistent, and it rang nonstop.
She shot up and rummaged through her bag for her phone.
It was a call from Jared Thorne.
She answered. "Dad? What’s up?"
Jared Thorne cleared his throat. "Remember to come home tomorrow evening."
Hayley Sullivan had already reminded her once, and now Jared Thorne was calling about it too.
Georgia’s head throbbed. ’Don’t tell me they’re trying to set me up with another man!’
Her head throbbing, she mumbled an affirmative, and Jared Thorne hung up.
The two of them, father and daughter, never had much to say to each other. He hadn’t even bothered with a "goodnight."
That night, Georgia had a dream.
In her dream, she was being assaulted by Elias Young, but the one who came to her rescue was Elliot Sheridan.
’What an absurd dream.’ The person who had actually saved her was Zane.
’So why did my mind jump to Elliot? Was it my subconscious?’
She awoke with a lingering sense of unease to a new day.
She pulled open the curtains. The sun was bright, and its warmth was already intense.
When she got to work, the female colleague who had pushed the Elias Young contract onto her came over, feigning concern. "So, how did the contract meeting go last night?" she asked.
Georgia sneered and confronted her colleague openly. "What did I ever do to you? You knew perfectly well that Elias Young is a creep who uses contract meetings to get women into bed, yet you said nothing and threw me to the wolves?"
The colleague’s face turned ugly. She hadn’t expected Georgia to confront her so publicly, especially with so many other coworkers around.
Her made-up face flushed crimson with rage. "That’s ridiculous! I..."
"Ridiculous or not, we both know the truth!" Georgia raised her voice, cutting her colleague off sharply.
"I don’t want something like this to happen ever again!"
With that, she turned and went back to her desk.
She might be kind, but she wouldn’t let others bully her, nor would she suffer injustice in silence.
The colleague was thoroughly humiliated. It was an open secret that Elias Young liked to take advantage of women.
Yet she had passed that contract to an unsuspecting newcomer. Many of their colleagues were now giving her strange looks.
They were all looking at her with contempt.
After work that afternoon, she took a car back to the Thorne family estate.
Uncharacteristically, there were no guests at the Thorne residence today.
It was just the family sitting around one table.
The atmosphere was strange. They were supposed to be a family, but it didn’t feel that way at all.
During dinner, Jared Thorne stressed that even though Georgia was working, she had to come home every weekend.
Georgia was about to object, but Jared Thorne’s sharp look silenced her. He added that the alternative was for her to move back home.
Between a weekly dinner and moving back home, Georgia naturally chose the former.
She silently shut her mouth and picked at the rice in her bowl, her appetite gone.
After dinner, she was, of course, expected to stay the night.
Perhaps because of her tiring day at work, she felt completely drained.
She was so sleepy right after the meal that all she wanted to do was sleep.
After a shower, she changed into her pajamas and curled up under the covers, unable to even keep her eyes open.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. A rhythmic knock sounded, and Hayley Sullivan’s voice came from the other side of the door.
"Georgia, open up. I have something to talk to you about."
Georgia was exhausted, her eyes already fluttering shut.
She forced herself out of bed on sheer willpower and opened the door.
"Is something wrong?"
She rubbed her eyes. The image of Hayley Sullivan before her was growing blurry; she could barely make out her features.
She blinked hard, and for a fleeting moment, Hayley Sullivan’s face came into focus.
"Georgia, you can barely stand. Are you sick?"
Hayley Sullivan’s voice was shrill. Georgia was about to say she was fine and just needed sleep, but her legs suddenly gave way. She collapsed to the floor, losing consciousness completely.
"Georgia? Georgia! What’s wrong?"
Hayley Sullivan stared down at the collapsed Georgia with disgust. After calling her name a few times with no response, she was sure.
Certain that Georgia was unconscious, Hayley called Amanda out. The mother-daughter duo then hoisted the unconscious Georgia up and hauled her downstairs.
"She’s so heavy!" Amanda was a pampered heiress who had never done a day of hard labor in her life. By the time they got Georgia into the car, she was already drenched in sweat.
"Next time, just have the driver do it!" Amanda grumbled, brushing off her expensive clothes. It was a brand-new outfit!
"Stop complaining and drive to the hotel! Now!"
"I know, I know!"
Amanda shot a glance at the unconscious woman in the back, reluctantly shut the door, and clacked her way to the driver’s seat in her high heels.
"Why did we have to do this ourselves? We could have just made the servants do it!"
’And now I have to drive in the middle of the night!’
Hayley glanced nervously at Georgia before turning to her daughter. "What do you know? Your uncle is coming back soon. Do you really want to see those two get together?"
"What would you call Georgia then? Aunt? And what about me? I’d have to call her my sister-in-law?"
